Astray
by mynightshining
Summary: [Oneshot] “I understand.” Chihiro never had her heart broken before, but this is what it must feel like, she thought. “I understand.” The worst part was that he didn’t. How could he?


**Author's Notes:** I was looking through old, old, old notes and found a nice little plot I completely forgot about, so here is a little one-shot for your reading enjoyment.

Please review and leave _constructive _criticism.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Spirited Away.

**Rating:** PG-13

**Summary:** "I understand." Chihiro never had her heart broken before, but this is what it must feel like, she thought. "I understand." The worst part was that he didn't. How could he?

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**Astray**

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_Perhaps they were right in putting love into books… _

_Perhaps it could not live anywhere else._

–William Faulkner _Light in August_

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Three weeks and somewhere along the way she had lost herself.

And then she found him.

He was everything she dreamed of loving. Bright, honest, loyal, her knight in shining armor, because when she met him, her past, or lack thereof, didn't matter.

He didn't know that her family disappeared in the middle of rural Japan for three weeks.

He didn't know that the last emotion she ever remembers feeling is Longing. For what? She never knew.

He didn't know that in her chest there was a gaping hole where her heart should be.

He didn't know.

Chihiro made it certain he never would.

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Memories are overrated, she thinks.

That is, until she finds _him._

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She was late, like always, running through the congested streets of Japan, running as fast as she could through a mass going five miles per hour in the opposite direction.

Inevitable, then. Unavoidable. To run into someone. She did, of course. Shoulders smacked together with such force that she flipped around. In that split second of contact her nerves spasmed. Bolts of fire and lightning traveled through her body like blood and oxygen, coating every centimeter, making her body burn with passion.

Her chest felt heavy.

…_a heart is a heavy burden…_

Her chest felt _heavy._

She knew.

Their eyes met. As lightening pierces the sky, memories_memories_—ones she believed never existed—dreams, of something lost to the Way of Time streaked past, then… nothing.

He opened his mouth to speak.

Chihiro's heart yearned to hear his voice, because she knew_knew_ she had lost _him._

Then she was pushed, unceremoniously, aside, body after body jostling her away from him. Her head whipped around, frantic, searching for his face, his eyes, his body; searching for everything she knew by heart.

But he was no longer there, and the_her_ piece_heart_ she thought she found dropped away.

Haunted_empty_, Chihiro (her chest so empty) continued to where she originally planned.

Hallucinating, she forced herself to believe.

She forced herself to believe she hadn't failed miserably in forcing herself to believe.

Hallucinating.

The shop's bell jingled as she swung the door open.

"Chihiro, are you sure you want a _white_ dress?" Her mother asked impatiently from a cushy loveseat situated next to the store's bay window.

Memories, drifting out the shop's still open door and into the vast open sky, faded away.

"Chihiro?" Mrs. Onigo continued when there was no response.

"What?"

"You want a white dress?"

Chihiro kissed her mother's cheek in greeting. "Yes."

Hallucinating.

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Marriage is overrated, she thought, pacing in her closet sized dressing room.

Silk, white as mortality, crunched against the floor.

Cold feet, she told herself, wringing her hands to death.

A bitter laugh escaped her biting lips, drowning her, and tears exploded from her eyes.

This wasn't how it was supposed to be.

She was supposed to love the man she married, the one standing at the end of the aisle: she didn't love him because every time she looked at him she saw _his_ face, every time she spoke his name another threatened to drip from her lips. She had grown to love _him_—the dream, the thought, _the essence_ of _him_.

She was supposed to get married when the sun bled red over the horizon, not when it bounced bright in the sky: rays of light streamed through the small stained glass window provided, creeping along the floor until it seared her pristine dress.

White instead of red. Not what she wanted. Not what she wanted at all.

Gathering up her skirts, Chihiro ran from her wedding.

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How disorienting darkness can be.

The forest was empty, the clearing deserted, the train station bare, and the thick night pressed against her porcelain skin, filling in the spaces she knew would never be filled.

She was a fool.

She was a fool to think destiny, fate, and _magic_ existed.

She was a fool to think she was in love with a complete stranger—bile burned her esophagus, the sour taste scathing her tongue—in love with a man she only saw once in her entire life. Yet, when she thought of _him_, she could almost remember: remember those three weeks, remember that she had once been happy, remember her heart.

_He_ (what was his _name_?) was not here, waiting for her as she thought.

Harder. Harder to breathe.

Her limbs grew heavy as if her body was not made of flesh and bone, but sand and stone, tar pumping through her gravelly veins. Too exhausted to hold her earthy weight, she moaned deep, guttural, as she crumpled upon herself, sliding down the station's rust-dyed exterior.

She was a fool.

He found her in a heap of muddied, torn fabric, sitting next to the empty doorway of the dilapidated train station. White against orange, as if the paint had chipped away leaving the building's mortar exposed. She wasn't crying. She was motionless; so still, in fact, that she hoped for a moment that maybe… maybe he'd think she was dead. He stood before her, tuxedo in worse shape than her dress.

"I understand," he spoke. His voice honest and broken, but true nonetheless.

Chihiro never had her heart broken before (because when there's no heart what's left to break?) but this is what it must feel like, she thought vaguely as her chest compressed and expanded all at once, rocky tissues and veins tearing and caving in. The hole where her heart should be pressed painfully against her ribs desperately trying to escape the confines of its angst-ridden cell.

This doesn't hurt, she thought, determined.

"I understand." And he did.

Tears fell in torrents down her fair, lush skin. This man loved her more than any stranger could. She could learn if she tried, to love him.

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Somewhere along the way he lost himself too.

Chihiro doesn't care, doesn't know, and likes to keep it that way.

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Chihiro left her house, closing the door, turning the key, and _click_ sounded the lock.

She was late again. This time the doctor will have her head.

How disappointing, she thought, running her hand over her gradually protruding belly. She hated being a high-risk pregnancy, hated that she can't have sex with her husband, hated that she practically lives at the hospital, hated that she's going to be responsible for a completely dependant human being when she can barely take care of herself.

But that's how Life is.

Chihiro hated her life.

She turned towards the street, readying the keys to her car.

He's there, standing in the walkway to her house, staring at her, looking at her as if he finally found something he lost, except it's not what he expected.

Not what he wanted. Not what he wanted at all.

She knew him. ­_Knew him._

Memories crash into her, flooring her. She's dreamed of his eyes, his touch, his face. She's dreamed of another life with him by her side, making love to him, having his child, and for once in her life being happy. Happy.

He's here. Finally here. She's been waiting years, and here he is, and…

And…

He's too late.

"Kohaku," his name slipped from her lips like ice. Cold. Distant. Frozen.

The shock alone could trigger a miscarriage.

Dazed, she found herself on sitting on her porch steps, cradling her unborn baby. Breathe…. _Breathe…_

"Chihiro," her name rushed past his tongue like a bubbling creek. There was hope in his eyes, his face, even in the way he stood. It was sickening, like too much sugar.

She watched as he noticed the ring wrapped around her finger. A ruby encased in white gold, not peridot, not the color she wanted, the color of his eyes.

"I understand." Hope, his heart, his life, weighed in those two words, terrifyingly hurt.

She hated him, then. Loathed him more that she thought she could. He was happiness to her and, like all promises of the world, broken and invisible, he was never there, never where she needed him to be. She had no heart because he held it in the palm of his hand. She couldn't love the man she desperately wanted to because, without a heart, she couldn't even pretend.

She hated Kohaku.

Because she loved him so damn much.

Tears leaked from her eyes, blurring her already fuzzy vision. Chihiro sighed, her smile rueful, the tears flowing over her lips.

"I understand." The worst part was that he didn't. How could he?

"I know."


End file.
